Recently, a lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York asserting that the leaders of various radical anti-Israel groups were responsible for aiding and abetting Hamas’ acts of international terrorism through disruptive and antisemitic protests in New York City over 18 months.
The lawsuit alleges that these groups, including Within Our Lifetime and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, may have had prior knowledge of Hamas’ terrorist activities and actively supported them, potentially violating the Antiterrorism Act and the Alien Tort Statue.
The defendants mentioned in the lawsuit include Within Our Lifetime and its founder Nerdeen Kiswani, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine led by Maryam Alwan, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace represented by Cameron Jones, and Columbia University Apartheid Divest represented by Mahmoud Khalil, who is currently in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The lawsuit asserts that the associational defendants have “distribute[d] Hamas-created and affiliated propaganda, incite[d] fear and violence, and attack[ed] critical academic, economic, and infrastructure centers in New York City,” as well as having “repeatedly terrorized and assaulted Jews across New York City and on Columbia University’s campus, physically assaulted Columbia University employees, and illegally seized and damaged public and private property.”
Anti-Israel demonstrators attend a protest at Columbia University in New York City, just days after the Hamas slaughter in southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
Given the “legal chasm between independent political advocacy and coordinating with a foreign terrorist organization to seed pro-terror propaganda throughout America’s largest city,” the lawsuit alleges the defendants’ “actions violate the Antiterrorism Act and the law of nations.”
According to the Jerusalem Post, the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Greenberg Traurig LLP, the Schoen Law Firm, and the Holtzman Vogel Law Firm filed the suit on behalf of plaintiffs who include Ziv, several Columbia University students who have served with the Israel Defense Forces, and a number of American and Israeli citizens whose family members, most of whom are believed dead, remain in Hamas captivity.
People protest the banning of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace at Columbia University on Nov. 20, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The lawsuit especially states that Khalil, “on information and belief, directly coordinates with Hamas, AMP/NSJP and/or other agents and affiliates of Hamas and related terrorist organizations.” The filers state that his detention by ICE in March may have been “based on many of his actions described in this Complaint.”
Khalil’s involvement in the Columbia protests was cited as a rationale for his removal during his April 11 hearing, when Judge Jamee Comans ruled that Khalil may be deported. Khalil also withheld past employment with the Syrian office in the Beirut British Embassy and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as well as his membership in the CUAD when applying for a green card.
This withholding of information, according to federal officials, made Khalil “inadmissible at the time of his adjustment.”
Disruptive events in New York City show no signs of abating. In March, students stormed a classroom at Columbia University and took over a building in affiliated Barnard College, where they assaulted an employee. A Within Our Lifetime protest on April 7 “took over” the main concourse of Grand Central Station.
Fox News Digital reached out to CUAD, Columbia SJP, Within Our Lifetime, and Columbia-Barnard JVP for comment about the allegations contained within the lawsuit, but received no response.
